2781 Feral cats

Here's a little guy who was on our deck today.



Ready to run at a moment's notice--and they are incredibly fast.



And then there was this fella, who wasn't feral--so friendly he kept getting under my feet every time I'd get the camera ready. Truly, feral and domestic cats are like two completely different species.



Lakeside, Ohio

2780 Got horses?

And kids to send to college? Here's a great house. I just love to feature real estate on my blog that I think is a good deal, and in this case, I didn't find it in the newspaper. I just happen to know the owner, and she is settling an estate. Eight acres and a college town. Can't beat that!

$249,900. 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, family room, basement. On 8 acres.

Greenville, Illinois is a lovely small town, home to a Christian college. You could run your own business, or be in sales, or computer-commute to St. Louis. It's just 50 miles. Hey, that's next door in LA or DC! It's got a hospital and a small airport, too.

Illinois real estate

2779 Lakeside Dock Scenes

The dock at Lakeside, OH, is a favorite gathering spot for families, lovers, fishermen and sunset watchers.

The Pavilion opens to the dock. It was torn down in the 50s for a "modern" flat roof blob and rebuilt in the late 80s when the planners came to their senses about the value of nostalgia and beauty in tourist areas.

This mom was teaching her boys how to fish, and each time I thought I had a good photo, one of them would jump up and move. That's Kelley's Island in the distance.

This couple was working a Soduku puzzle. The crowd at the end of the dock were watching a regatta.

These folks were anticipating

the sunset.

Lakeside, Ohio

Traverse Bay area of Michigan

Northern Michigan was magnificent when we visited our friends Joan and Jerry at their summer home in Boyne City on Aug. 7-9. If there is a prettier lake color than Lake Charlevoix on a sunny August day, I'd like to see it. The first day we drove around the lake and the second we crossed it by boat. Every town I've marked in green we visited.

This is the view where Lake Charlevoix empties into Little Traverse Bay (with a little help from a canal).

We were particularly interested in Bay View, a Methodist Chautauqua community founded in 1875 (2 years after Lakeside). There are 500 wonderful homes there (sort of surrounded by Petoskey), and my husband, an architect, loved it. It really doesn't have the same community feel as Lakeside, but does provide some wonderful theater and musical performances at the John Hall Auditorium.

Bay View has a central "campus" area, whereas Lakeside has a business district with little stores and restaurants.


If you can stay a spell, the Little Traverse Bay area would be a good spot. Gorgeous views, great accomodations and beautiful sunsets, with neat little shopping areas. But we found it to be 7.5 hours from Toledo, which is on the Michigan/Ohio border. . . and we're really spoiled by being 2.5 hours from Lake Erie.

2777 Trip Tale: St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg

After a wonderful visit to the Hermitage Museum and its art shop on Tuesday morning July 18, we ate lunch at a nice restaurant--fish soup, salad, and salmon with slivered almonds. Then our G-6 (three couples from the USA) headed for St. Isaac's Cathedral with our guide, Veronika. Really, it is almost more than the eye and mind can take in during such a brief period. St. Isaac's was built between 1818 and 1858, by the French-born architect Auguste Montferrand and is one of the most impressive buildings in St. Petersburg. Definitely see this if you are planning a trip. The communists closed it as a house of worship (can hold 14,0000) and reopened it as a museum, but it is a church again. What look like paintings are actually very detailed mosaics, and the columns are made of malachite and lapis lazuli. Although I don't think our guide was particularly observant, she always referred to the cathedrals as being "of our faith," probably not considering the Baptists and Pentecostals who are evangelizing there authentically Russian.





The architect's model. Although he lived his professional life in Russia, he was not Orthodox, so could not be buried in the cathedral as he had wished. Our guide told us his wife took the body back to France.

We returned to our hotel about 4:30, rested, had dinner at 7 p.m., and then attended a folk dance performance in the hotel's theater. A very full day indeed!

2776 Speedy Spanish Rice

Mom used to make something called Spanish rice. I really liked it, but never asked her how she made it. I made a quick, close second today. My son has had a very good garden year and brought over a jar of his home made salsa and another of spaghetti sauce, plus sacks of fresh tomatoes and cukes. So here's how I made my Spanish rice, which took about 4 minutes. (One serving)

1 package of Trader Joe's frozen brown rice (3 minutes in the microwave)
3 Tbsp of the fresh salsa (more if you wish)
mixed in a small bowl with
3 Tbsp shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Pour 1/2 the hot rice over the mix, stir, and return to microwave for 30 seconds. Hmmmm. Good! (Put the rest of the rice in frig for tomorrow.)

Monday Memories: the college laundry

Last week I noticed an article in a Toledo paper that reported some Ohio colleges were offering amenities for students as an enticement to stay in the dorms--one being free laundry facilities. So that put me to thinking. How did I do laundry when I was in college? For the life of me, I can't remember how I did my laundry at McKinley Hall at the University of Illinois, but I do have a snippet of memory left from Oakwood Hall at Manchester College in Indiana.

The current Oakwood Hall on campus is a nice modern building, but the old Oakwood that was there in the 1950s was probably about 50 years old and a little down at the heels. It's possible that it was built in stages, so the dorm rooms may have been older than the lounges and porch. Both of my sisters had also lived in Oakwood when they attended Manchester. I think part of the basement was a dining hall for the whole college which everyone entered from the front outside entrance and part of it was laundry facilities with a door in the back.

My roommate used to do her 2 brothers' laundry, and if you had a boyfriend on campus (mine was at the University of Illinois), you did his laundry. Although I can't imagine why, there was some social cachet (and cash) in doing a guy's laundry ["Would you like to go steady and do my laundry?"]. Or maybe the men's dorm didn't have washers and dryers. I think if a guy didn't have a girlfriend with access to the machines in Oakwood, he sent his laundry home to mama.

Although I can't remember what the machines looked like or the route to get there from my dorm room, I remember the laundry room also had ironing boards, and tables set up for sewing and studying. One night Sylvia (friend from high school who also lived in Oakwood) and I were out after curfew. In those days, women had curfews but men did not--the reasoning being that if the girls were safely inside, the boys would be home studying. We stayed out deliberately, but were only walking the streets of North Manchester talking. When we got back to Oakwood Hall, we tapped on the basement window and someone doing her laundry, opened the door and let us in. We didn't even have to crawl in a window, which is what we thought we'd have to do. Sigh. We were so bad at being bad.

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2773 Week Eight 2006 at Lakeside

At Lakeside, the Chautauqua community on Lake Erie, the week runs from Saturday to Saturday, with the special entertainment usually being on Saturday. This past week (I wrote about CeCe Winans earlier) we had special treats on Thursday and Friday, too. On Thursday we enjoyed the beautiful harmony of The Wailin' Jennys, a Canadian women's trio who write, play and sing folk, pop and Celtic music. Ohio borders Canada (if you don't mind getting wet) and is a red state; might be good if they left their Bush comments across the border. It gets a smattering of applause, but I saw a number of people leaving Hoover (as I left).

On Friday the River City Brass from Pittsburgh filled the stage and the auditorium with a BIG sound. Oh, how I love brass. And they can sing too! The conductor looks quite laid back, but then he turns around and talks to the audience and is great fun. His regional humor is funny--he understands his audience! Huge standing ovations for these guys (and a few ladies) who played, Big Band swing and jazz, music from Broadway and Hollywood, classical and contemporary masterworks, and traditional marches, with 25 instrumentalists and some on percussion.

Wednesday night after dinner with Wes and Sue we attended the symphony for selections by Mozart and Tschaikovsky. As usual, it was fabulous, with the best save for last (my husband says), because I almost always get sleepy and go home during intermission.

This was interfaith week, I think, which I pretty much ignored when I saw that there were 3 Muslims, one Sikh and one liberal Christian on the program. Usually I manage at least one or two lectures, but this year have not attended any.

Lakeside, Ohio

2772 Happy Birthday Bro

I can't get Blogger to upload a fresh photo, so I'll reuse one I had for our Rock River Cruise last year.

2771 The wedding season

Yesterday we attended a wedding in Kirtland, Oh at the Mooreland Mansion on the campus of Lakeland College. A beautiful spot for a garden wedding--however, after a week of gorgeous weather, there was a downpour! I felt sorry for the bride and groom, but even moreso for the parents who had been watching the weather sites about every 30 seconds. By 4:30, I think they were down to plan D and went with it. We have watched the groom grow up, and I think my daughter may have even been a babysitter. His dad "Eric" is one of the links on my blog--so I hope he posts some photos. His family has also enjoyed Lakeside over the years and they sail, so we gave the happy couple one of my husband's paintings of sailboats against a sunset on Lake Erie. Best wishes Dawn and John-Paul.

About a month from now we'll be in California for my sister-in-law's wedding. Last night at the reception I realized I need to buy a tiny little fancy purse, because lugging a bag around with check book, misc. meds, calendar and sunglasses is just no fun. Plus, we older ladies need to lighten the load on our shoulders. The little shop "Cottage Accessories" here at Lakeside has some lovely beaded numbers--good excuse to shop. But also, I have an old black velvet dress purse that belonged to my husband's Aunt Roberta. She had no children and really fussed over all her nieces and nephews. So possibly I could use that and let her (now deceased) sort of be there in spirit.

2770 Veritas Vincit

This Latin motto, "Truth Conquers," would make an interesting blog title, I thought. Upon checking, I discovered 5 other people thought so too and had used it in some form or other. So, I guess I won't use it. It was the motto for the college that used to be in Mt. Morris, Illinois. I looked at a site that reported on college mottoes, and this one doesn't seem to be in use any longer. Interesting.


When the Methodist Episcopal Church reprentatives drove a stake in the prairie at a high point where they would establish a seminary, there weren't any houses or settlers, although a few white families had been settling in the area. The village was laid out by the trustees of Rock River Seminary which owned all the land where the town now stands. But it was the local people, mostly recently arrived from Maryland who donated the money and the land, 480 acres, to induce the church to take on this challenge of establishing a school in the middle of nowhere. Alexander Hamilton's son had explored the area and Abraham Lincoln fought the Indians near by, but there wasn't much going on.

The college prospered for awhile, but the Methodists established another college in Evanston (Northwestern) and that sort of ate into the pool of potential students. But it did turn out about 7,500 students, a lot of them clergy, lawyers, politicians, editors and businessmen before it closed in 1878. It was reopened in 1879 by a group of Brethren businessmen as an institution for their young people (now Church of the Brethren), and it became Mount Morris Seminary and Collegiate Institute, and then Mt. Morris College. After a fire in 1931, the college closed in 1932 (there had also been a fire in 1912, but the college rebuilt). My parents were freshmen when it burned; my mother's parents had also met there. In 1994 the town school system merged with Oregon with high schoolers being bussed. In 2004 the elementary school was destroyed by fire, and now the little ones are bussed too. The original high school where I had classes for a year, later became a junior high, and it burned in 1989 (no longer in use as a school).

The current students have all adjusted--probably better than the adults. Just as my generation had no memory of the college except what our parents told us, so there will soon be young people who have no memory of a town school. It does seem odd now to me, an outsider for many years, that the little town created because people cared about education, doesn't have a college, or a high school or an elementary school.

Information from "Mt. Morris Past and Present" by Harry G. Kable, rev. ed., 1938 and photo from "The 1929 Life" of Mt. Morris College.

2769 FLW Tour: War Memorial Columbus, IN

When I first saw this war memorial on the lawn of the county courthouse in Columbus, IN, I thought it really clashed. However, when you walk up to it and enter it, it really is impressive and sobering. Particularly moving are the letters home in the granite from the soldiers shortly before they died. All wars of the 20th century are represented.

2768 Why am I doing this?

If you stop by often, you may notice I'm not using Mr. Linky any more. That's the automatic sign in. At first, it was really cute and simple. But then it started changing. So why'd I drop it? Well, you have to sign in again when you leave a comment, don't you? So the time you save as a blogger, you use up at someone else's site with a double sign in--especially those that make you jump through hoops and hunt for the comment window while listening to ugly music. Also, if you use Mr. Linky the next time, it disappears from the former entry--yes, the reader could go to the trouble to click, open and read it, but who does that? And I doubt that those links "count" on the various sites that rank blogs (today I'm #201 based on links (or a magic formula I don't understand), which isn't too bad considering there are 50 million blogs). The time involved in meme participation is reading the other blogs, not in typing in your name, only to have it disappear anyway with the next time the writer uses Mr. Linky.

Also, increasingly for meme sites, I'm only visiting blogspot.com bloggers because some are just too difficult to leave comments. I know spam is a problem, but unless you are really controversial or flaunting how sexy you are, drawing trolls and sock puppets to your site, do you really need all that protection?

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2767 Crabby people are the smartest

One of my regular readers will certainly agree. What would we do without studies? Apparently a study has shown that after age 60, the crabbiest people are the smartest (Jacqueline Bichsel, Morgan State University).

"The theory is that more challenging and argumentative people may be giving themselves more of the mental workout needed to keep their minds sharp." Another theory is that smart people don't like being patronized, which is the attitude many older people get, so they might snap at you if you say something sappy.

Did you see that Orlando and St. Pete are #1 and #2 for angry people? Must be a lot smart alecky older golfers around there. I think Columbus was #53.

When Michelle, the Convivial Librarian, asked Middle School students what words came to mind with "librarian," they responded: "Cardigan" "old" "sssshh-ers" "mean" "crabby" "smart" and "read often." Works for me!

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen very easy, inexpensive or free things we can do this week to make the world a better place for a few moments. Pick just one. Two if you're feeling lucky and joyful.

1. Let someone into merging traffic--even if he's driving like an idiot and not waiting his turn.

2. Smile at him. The Bible says something about being nice is heaping hot coals on your enemy. Picture that when you arrive at the stoplight at the same time.

3. Pick up one or two pieces of trash--a plastic bag, candy wrapper, pop bottle, etc.--from the sidewalk or berm on your way to work or activity. What if millions of people did that?

4. Drop it in the nearest trash can. Create jobs for sanitation crews.

5. Put a quarter in the tip jar at the coffee shop.

6. Be classy instead of colloquial. Say "You‘re welcome," instead of "no problem" if someone thanks you.

7. Donate a jar of peanut butter to the local food pantry.

8. Or offer to volunteer on your day off.

9. Send a card to someone who is ill or shut-in or grieving.

10. If you don't know anyone like that, praise God and call a church or nursing home for a name and make a stranger happy.

11. If someone comes to visit, turn off the television and the music.

12. Hold open the door for someone whose hands are full.

13. If you pack someone’s lunch, put a happy note or cartoon inside.

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2765 Was your high school deactivated?

Illinois has a Glory Days website for deactivated high schools. It is an interesting site and they are looking for stories and photos and records for a lot of schools. Mine seems pretty complete, since it only submerged in the 1990s. I checked my mother's school, which deactivated in the 1950s and it seems a little sparse. I'll have to dig around in my old photos and see what I can come up with.

It's very sad when a town loses its school system. It's hard to make it as a community without that unifying effort of educating for the future. Mt. Morris lost its schools from greed, disaster and duplicity. There was a strike in its major industry, printing, about 30 years ago which spelled economic disaster for the formerly proud and prosperous town, then the bond issues didn't pass, then after they started bussing the high school kids to the next town, the grade school burned to the ground in 2004. Instead of rebuilding as the town wanted, the local rep on the school board back-stabbed his constituency and voted not to rebuild. He's since moved out of state, which was probably smart.

2764 How it all started

"On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took approximately seventy Americans captive. This terrorist act triggered the most profound crisis of the Carter presidency and began a personal ordeal for Jimmy Carter and the American people that lasted 444 days." (Carter Library website)

And he wimped out. Disgraced himself and the USA. So now he runs around criticizing the only President we've had who is willing to stand up to terrorists. Way to go Jimmy. I've mentioned before that I liked Jimmy Carter in the 70s (I'm a recovering Democrat--but I don't dem anymore). I ignored a lot of his flaws. Inflation about about 14% or was that the mortgage rate? Unemployment was very high. Gasoline lines were long. He created FEMA. He had marketed himself as an "outsider," and thus he never really got "in," because his own party bigwigs didn't like him much. Really, they still don't.

Ex-presidents should mind their own business. Peanuts. Building houses. Stuff like that. They had their chance and they should stop acting like bitter former wives trying to make themselves look good by tearing down their successors. His approval rating was around 29% when he left office, and I wish he'd stop trying to get it up.

2763 The most popular Lakeside activity

When I was in the Association office the other day buying stamps, there was a line of people signing up for the Tram Tour, "Lakeside's History." We did this about 5 years ago with a neighbor, and I think we were the only 3 people on the ride. The tours are Monday and Tuesday mornings, 10:30-11:45, Monday afternoon 1:15-2:30, and Tuesday 3:30-4:45. Now, if you come here, you need to sign up first thing, or miss it. This week I saw 4 people on bicycles following along.



Carol, who leads the tour, grew up here attending local schools. The last tour date is August 29, and it costs $3 per person.

Lakeside, Ohio

2762 Snacks and chats on the dock

Last evening the Lakeside dock was closed to the public and donors to the Lakeside Fund were invited to an evening on the dock. Bright yellow tablecloths at tables for 8 and delicious treats were set out--of which I probably ate too many. There was a brisk warm breeze and a fabulous sunset. Then someone with a video cam stopped and interviewed us about why we come to Lakeside. I assume snippets will be used in some sort of montage for marketing. Nancy said Lakeside is where she got her first kiss--that should get in; Joe said 5 generations of his family (had his grandchildren this week) had come here; my husband said he knew within 30 minutes of first coming here in 1974 that he would be back.

Today my husband helped for 3.5 hours with Kids' Sail, where the S.O.S. guys take kids out on the sail boats for 10-15 minutes. Ninety-one children participated! This is the first year of this program, and I think we'll see many children signing up for lessons because they really love it.

Lakeside, Ohio

What have you bought on e-Bay?

When I first heard about e-Bay it was from a friend who actually became addicted to it. It's changed a lot from those early days when it was primarily just ordinary folk hawking wares. Now some businesses have closed their bricks and mortar stores and sell only this way. Anyway, my son bought his car on e-Bay, I think he bought it from someone in Atlanta, and then turned around and sold his truck to someone who flew from Salt Lake to Columbus to pick it up. All this seems very strange to me, but some people think having 8 blogs is strange. Imagine!

BMW
e-Bay auto

2760 Do you sic or spell?

I can't help it. Usually when I quote someone (block, chop, drop and link), I correct the spelling, typos and grammar errors of the original, because I'm not sure the reader of my blog will ever click over. What do you do? And do you go back and correct your own typos if you find them later--after they've already oozed into the various blog finders "as is," forever embedded in cyber-cement? I do, unless it's in the title, and then that would throw it off in the various finding links. Recently I quoted a published columnist and spiffed up the quote a bit. It's a librarian thing, I think.

2759 The greatest economic story ever told

"Exactly twenty-five years ago [Aug. 14], Ronald Reagan signed into law the first supply-side tax cuts since the JFK plan of the early 1960s. By reducing high marginal tax rates, Reagan transformed the American economy and opened the door to two-and-half decades of prosperity. Economic behavior responds significantly to the incentive power of low tax rates that raise the after-tax return on work, investment, and risk-taking." Larry Kudlow

Trip Tale: The Hermitage

It seems that everyone who visits St. Petersburg goes to the Hermitage. And it is fabulous. The crowds are incredible--I'm sure you could spend weeks there, and we only had about 1/2 day. However, if you are really interested in art and have limited time, I'd go for the Museum of Russian Art, Государственный Русский музей. The Hermitage is European art, but the other is Russian art, and much of it you've probably never seen, not even in art books or classes. There was a huge display of Soviet era art, both the public and the underground. That's where I spent most of my time. It was incredible. It's also the only place I lost my husband, so Gloria and I spent a lot of time wandering the halls looking for him. We were finally all reunited back at the hotel. We couldn't take photos in there, but here are some from the Hermitage.



I'm not sure how she did it, but our guide slipped us in with no wait, and then we started at the end and went the other direction to avoid the biggest crowds.

Me and two other ladies in the Hermitage



Hermitage
St. Petersburg
Russia

2757 Why do we tolerate leftist academics?

If we believe in the market, and they are tolerated by the people paying their salaries, what's so bad? Jane Galt answers:

"Firstly, academics are broadly ignored (ask any academic) so it does not matter what they say at all. Occasionally the marginal idea escapes the academy and has an impact, but by and large students just want to graduate, academics just want to be insulated from the real world, and the real world wants to be isolated from loonies who go on about how great Che Guevara was. In this light, the Academy is a very efficient mechanism, creating surplus for all.

Secondly, I don't know why people like to ascribe the ills of the world to left-wing ideology, right-wing ideology, or any kind of ideology at all. It's not like humans weren't making dumb and violent decisions long before "ideology" was invented, or that humans will not make dumb and violent decisions if ideology was magically erased. The issue here is that humans intrinsically do dumb and violent things, and the notion that this is somehow driven by ideas cooked up by some guys sitting in an Ivory Tower, writing papers that no one else reads, is bogus. Primitive tribes in the Amazon regularly slaughtered significant %s of neighboring tribes, and they didn't even have paper."

Read the whole article here.

I have withdrawn thousands of volumes from library shelves in a university over the years which have gone into dumpsters. I always looked at the check-out record. Many had never circulated. Blogs are read more often than some academics' books and articles.

Monday Memories: Our Lakeside bicycles

Although I don't have the first photo with me, this bicycle was a birthday gift for me in 1968 when our daughter was still a baby. It is a no gear, no speed (but me) old fashioned bike with coaster brakes and I love it more each year. Several years ago I replaced the original seat, and around 1979 we replaced the tires, which had been damaged when a friend had a spill riding it. The original tires weren't this wide, so we had to cut some of the fender back to get it to fit.

About 15 years ago we bought a 10 speed Raleigh from a neighbor for about $20 and brought it to the lake. This year the tires gave out so my husband took it to the local bike shop for repairs. The two tires, new rims, new tubes, gear repair, new carrying rack and all-round tune-up cost us $100! I was in shock.
Everyone in Lakeside parks their cars and rides bikes. Our expensive refurbished used Raleigh bike is in here somewhere.

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Lakeside, Ohio

2755 The 29th Annual Lakeside Regatta

Last night we attended the S.O.S. (Society of Old Salts) Sailing Appreciation Picnic. I think that may be the only hot dog I've had all summer--also coleslaw, potato salad and brownies. The other old salts urged my husband to enter the regatta today--so they wouldn't be last. But he declined. The day was spectacular and there were many people down at the dock to cheer on the guys. There were junior and senior sunfish, doubles, and laser class races.







Lakeside, Ohio

2754 The Waitress test

I don't think I included some of these points in my "How not to marry a jerk" blog and "How not to marry a high maintenance woman" that I wrote a few months back.

Here's one. The waitress test. "If you find yourself dating a man who treats you like a queen and other females like dirt - hit the road."

There's a long list of signs you're dating a loser over at Coffee Talk, who's recently been dumped and feeling really blue. She got them from Joe Carver's website. He's currently working with juvenile offenders. I think there's probably a link between losers and offenders. He also has an article "Love and the Stockholm syndrome."

Then she writes some advice from bitter experience for women about being dumb and living with the boyfriend:

"Marriage verses living together: Many couples today live together for years and never get married; this is fine if you don't want to marry this person, but if you do don't sell yourself short. If you want marriage from this man then stick to your guns and don't settle for less, move the wedding date up if it is so imporant for you two to live under one roof, if you're sure that he is the one for you. But don't fall for these lines from him: I want to see how we work together before we tie the knot. Or, I don't want to get married till I can buy you a proper ring, or have a nice wedding, or save money to buy a nicer home or car, or I want to pay off some bills before I get married. Accept it, he's not looking for a wife...He's looking for a Room-mate, THAT COOKS AND CLEANS AND GIVES HIM FREE SEX, and pays half of the bills so he has more money. He's still looking for MRS. RIGHT, and you just allowed him to say, "You're not her" and went along with it. You're worth more then what he is willing to offer, be smart run fast!"

Couldn't have said it better myself. I would have even told her that two years ago when I first came across her blog, but she wouldn't have believed me then.

2753 Ka Boom, Bang Thud Crash

When I stepped outside the coffee shop this morning at Lakeside, I heard a very loud "worship" band practicing at the Pavilion. Inwardly I groaned for the folks trying to sleep-in at the hotel, and for those of us planning to attend a peaceful morning worship service with communion at 8:30 by the lake. I walked back to the cottage and told my husband I just refused to go and have my ears assaulted and my heart rate changed by the thud-thud-crash of a loud contemporary worship band. It is always a contemporary service, but usually just with happy Gwen playing simple little songs at the electric synthesizer. No drums. No electric guitars or ampilification.

Part of my distaste was recovering from last night's concert by CeCe Winans. She is a fabulous singer, a terrific preacher, and a great performer, but the lights were blinding and the amplification painful. Just as distracting were her backup singers, all overweight and looking like they were dressed to chop cotton on a cool day--faded boot cut jeans two sizes too small and black jeans jackets over t-shirts. What ever happened to glamor--usually African American women can sweep us out the door with their fashion flare! This is a summer vacation spot and the audience in capri pants and shorts was dressed better than the performers!

When she performed for the President it was much quieter and more glamorous.

CeCe Winans
contemporary worship

2752 Blueberries and Cancer

I blogged about the benefits of blueberries last summer, but because they are in season, here's a reminder from this week's US Farm Report.

"WHEN IT COMES TO PREVENTING CANCER AND ALZHEIMER’S, USDA RESEARCHERS SAY YOU SHOULD ADD MORE BLUEBERRIES AND OTHER DARK COLORED FRUIT TO YOUR DIET. RESEARCHERS SAY ANTHOCYANINS, THE CHEMICAL THAT MAKES BLUEBERRIES BLUE, HELPS CONTROL FREE RADICALS WHICH PLAY A ROLE IN CANCER AND OTHER HEALTH PROBLEMS. THEY SAY THE ANTHOCYANINS ARE ANTIOXIDANTS WHICH HELP SHUT OFF THE SIGNALS WHICH LEAD TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DISEASES. RESEARCHERS SAY IF FRESH BERRIES ARE TOO EXPENSIVE OR NOT AVAILABLE, FROZEN BERRIES ARE JUST AS GOOD."

2751 Vehicle accidents in rural areas

Virtually all the people I know who have died in traffic accidents have been from "home"--i.e., rural, northern Illinois--even though I haven't lived there since 1957. I think I've blogged about this before. My nephew narrowly escaped death from a motorcycle accident last Thursday on Chana Road near Illinois Rt.64. He will be a long time recovering, and we're calling him a prayer chain miracle. But these statistics published in Farm Journal are just stunning. Many more miles are traveled in urban areas than rural, but the rural areas have the highest number of crashes and fatalities.

26.4: In trillions, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the U.S. from 1994 to 2003

39: Percent of VMT in rural areas

61: Percent of VMT in urban areas

42: Percent more crashes in rural settings than urban settings

49: Percent more fatalities in rural crashes compared with urban crashes

2.1: The fatal crash rate in rural areas per 100 million VMT

1: The fatal crash rate in urban areas

24: Percent of fatal crashes in rural areas involving vehicle rollovers

10: Percent of fatal crashes in urban areas involving vehicle rollovers

2750 Katrina medical tragedy

Be sure to read Michael Hebert's account of the doctor and 2 nurses accused of murder in the Katrina aftermath at Methodist Hospital in New Orleans. Murder at Memorial. He looks at this case from all the angles, the specialty and skill of the doctor, the conditions, the poor prognosis of the patients, and concludes:

"The sad part about this case is that, whether Pou, Budo, and Landry are convicted or not, the unmistakable message is that all three would have been smarter if they had run away. No one is being prosecuted for abandonment. Why didn’t they run? Obviously, because they felt a sense of responsibility to the patients, a sense that no one else seems to have had. Charles Foti wasn’t on a helicopter evacuating patients that week. Neither was Mayor Ray Nagin, or Governor Blanco, or FEMA Director Michael Brown, or Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, or President Bush. It is the great travesty of this situation that the people who are really responsible for the conditions at Methodist are still AWOL, just as they were a year ago."

I disagree with him that GWB should be looked at first, because I don't believe the federal gov't was ever intended to be the first responder, but except for that, he doesn't let politics get in the way--just tells the sad options.

2749 Like little kids

the left wing bloggers are covering their eyes and shouting so they can't hear or see anything. Pathetic.

"British police have arrested 24 people suspected of involvement in the plot. At least one was reportedly a woman with a small child; two others were converts to Islam. One of the suspects reportedly worked at Heathrow Airport.

The identities of 19 were disclosed by the Bank of England as it announced it had frozen their accounts. They ranged in age from 17 to 35 and had Muslim names, many of them common in Pakistan. Pakistani officials said they were British-born.

Pakistani officials said they had arrested five Pakistanis and two Britons in the case, including British national Rashid Rauf, arrested about a week ago and described as a "key person" with ties to al-Qaida." (AP story)

Trip Tale: St. Petersburg, The Peter and Paul Fortress

When Peter the Great of Russia decided he needed a city on the Gulf of Finland he built a fort to fight off the Swedes, the enemy of the day. Later when Sweden lost The Finnish War to Russia, Finland became a Grand Duchy of Russia, gaining its independence in 1917. This fortress (Петропавловская крепость) was begun in 1703 but served also as a prison. In the middle of the fortress stands the impressive Peter and Paul Cathedral, the burial place of all the Russian Emperors and Empresses from Peter the Great to Alexander III and recently the remains of the last tsar, Nicholas II and his family and entourage, who were murdered by the Bolsheviks were also interred there. Other buildings in the fortress include the City History Museum and the Mint, one of only two places in Russia where coins and medals are minted. It is located on an island, Zayachii Ostrov.

The cathedral



Tsar Nicholas II family

FLW Tour: Sidney, OH Sullivan Bank

Tiny Sidney in Shelby County, Ohio is home to at least two famous buildings and many other lovely sites, Peoples Federal Savings and Loan (est. 1886) and The Spot Restaurant. At the Spot the regulars have name plates on the booths. President Bush ate there during the 2004 campaign. We visited both landmarks on our July architectural tour. Louis Sullivan influenced many 20th century architects, particularly Frank Lloyd Wright and he designed this beautiful bank. Our group loved it. Also, driving through these little Ohio towns, I was very impressed with the diversity of the economy. It was my first visit to Sidney, and it looks like a great town in which to live and put down roots (although, having grown up in a small town, I know that it helps to be born there).

2747 For Democrats to win in 2006

"If Democrats could take even half the voters who consider Iraq a significant but not a “vote-deciding” issue and convert them into antiwar zealots, they would win the 2006 midterm elections by a comfortable margin. With an ongoing, bloody insurgency that is costing hundreds of American lives and billions of taxpayer dollars, it is not difficult to imagine this strategy being quite successful."

Convert them into "antiwar zealots". . .isn’t that an interesting turn of phrase. Just to win an election. That's the conclusion of Amy Gershkoff at the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Report, dated August 8. Let the Iraqis die the way our abandoned allies in VietNam did in the 1970s when we cut and ran. Just to win an election. It used to be that "democide" meant death by government for political control--like the Maoists and Stalinists who killed millions of their own people to achieve their power. Now it could mean death by Democratic converted anti-war zealots. Just to win an election. Never mind the Democrats who voted for it. Including Kedwards. Of course, on August 8 she said Americans were concerned about terrorism but not homeland security so much.

No wonder the U.S. left wing bloggers are screaming that England colluded with Bush and puffed up this latest terrorism alert. They need more mind-numbed converts to one issue. Just to win a mid-term election. They don't care spit about "lost American lives," only their political careers.

2746 Uncle Sam as a step-father

After citing his grandmother's legacy for raising five strong, competent, college educated daughters, Paul Reyes calls for government aid to help today's teen Latinas, who seem to be floundering. Story here. Uncle Sam makes a poor step-father, and his daughters raised with his money go on to a legacy of welfare and poverty, so maybe Reyes needs to be talking to the men in his community instead of federal and state agencies.

2745 Send Nagin and Blanco to China

If we can believe their news sources any more than our own, Chinese officials evacuated 1.5 million people from their southeast coast Thursday in the face of a powerful typhoon. Story. Why couldn't Mayor Nagin and Gov. Kathleen Blanco rally their first responders (the state and local administrations' responsibility) like that for Hurricane Katrina? Let's get them a government grant to fly to China to see how it's done. Florida would be too close, and besides, Jeb is in charge there.


typhoons
Hurricane Katrina
Ray Nagin
Kathleen Blanco
Typhoon Saomai

2744 Let's made blood tests admissible in court

In Ohio, hospitals aren't required to make blood tests in alcohol and drug related accidents available to put away people who drive drunk and kill others. I think Kelly Volpe might go free because the hospital which treated her after the accident which killed her 6 year old daughter never sought certification for this. Most hospitals don't because they don't want their employees tied up in court cases. I'm sure the lawyers will find a way to throw out testimony of the eye witnesses.

Common Pleas Judge Angela P. White’s ruling yesterday was no surprise, prosecutors said. White said the blood drawn by Riverside Methodist Hospital personnel to treat Mrs. Volpe for her injuries was inadmissible because of a 2005 Ohio Supreme Court ruling.

That ruling said a hospital must have a special state certification in order to test blood for law-enforcement purposes. Like most hospitals in the state, Riverside has been reluctant to seek that certification. (Columbus Dispatch, Aug. 11, 2006)

How much would it cost to have one or two employees on hand who do this? It could put away multiple offenders like Ms. Volpe whose arrests for DUI go back to her teen years.

2743 Racial profiling, claims lawyer

You've probably read that two young Lebanese American men from Dearborn, MI, Ali Houssaiky and Osama Sobhi Abulhassan, have been arrested for suspicious behavior in central Ohio. Dispatch story here. "If their names were Joe Smith. . ." whined their lawyer. Give me a break! If any of my 10th generation American, fair-haired grandsons of my sister or cousins are picked up with drugs in the car, $11,000 in cash, a dozen cell phones, a list of passengers and baggage information from a mid-eastern airline and information about U.S. airports, I certainly hope the police will detain them! I promise not to come to the courtroom with scrapbooks of their athletic accomplishments in high school and moan about racial profiling and claim they are just good American boys earning money for college.

Let's get a grip. We are at war.

2742 Muslims first, Brits second?

News reports are focusing on this idea because of the plane plots. What's the big deal? Most Christians I know would (or should) say "Christians first, Americans second." It's Biblical. Most religions promote a higher calling than the geography of your birth.

2741 Thursday Thirteen: Thirteen Medical Studies

Medical trials have writing groups, steering committees, policy committees, safety boards, statisticians, coordinators, and investigators. But what do they call the committee or group who comes up with a snappy name for the Trial, a name that can be spelled and pronounced? A name that can go down in history? I don’t know! But here’s some recent trials reported in the medical literature. They are not in alphabetical order, which is unusual for me, but in the order in which I noticed them.

1) International Study of Salt and Blood Pressure (INTERSALT)

2) Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT)

3) Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering treatment to prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT)

4) ALiskiren Observation of heart Failure Treatment: (ALOFT)

5) Valsartan In Acute Myocardial Infarction Trial (VALIANT)

6) TRial Of Preventing HYpertension (TROPHY)

7) Telithromycin, Chlamydophila and Asthma Trial (TELICAST)

8) Heart Outcomes Prevention Evaluation (HOPE)

9) Rescue Angioplasty After Thrombolysis (REACT)

10) Medical, Epidemiological and Social Aspects of Aging (MESA)

11) Pelvic Organ Prolapse Quantification (POP-Q)

12) Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR)

13) Metaanalysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Leave a comment and I'll add your name and URL. View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

1. Unexplored Territory 2. Blogging outloud 3. Tinkerbell 4. Buttercup & Bean 5. Nat’s Mini-Obs, 6. Lisa 7. Pastor’s Wife 8. Mierda del Toro 9. Kevin 10. Life in the Burg 11. Rowan 12. Lisa-Marie 13. Caldonia

Trip Tale: Kalinka, Kalinka

A Russian chorus and folk dance troupe performed in our hotel's theater in St. Petersburg. Our tour guide had offered to set something up for us, but Gloria spotted a notice that one would perform in our hotel. Seven buses brought cruise ship tourists, but the hall wasn't filled. The performance was lovely, and we didn't even have to leave the building. After dinner in the hotel dining room at 7 p.m., we just walked up a flight and enjoyed the fabulous talent of this group with a live orchestra.


Калинка, калинка, калинка моя,
В саду ягода малинка, малинка моя,

Под сосною под зеленою
Спать положите вы меня.

Ах! Сосенушка ты зеленая,
Не шуми же надо мной!

Ах! Красавица, душа девица,
Полюби же ты меня!

folk singers
St. Petersburg, Russia

2739 Old Joe

The Democrats have lost the heart and soul of the party to the radicals. They will listen to the lies of the rich, white, anti-Jewish left in the party and dump old Joe, who is right with them on just about everything except defense. He is a supporter of Israel, increasingly a no-no on the left. I guess the Jews in the party don't read history, if they go with the party first and their heritage second. Jews in Germany and Russia learned the hard way.

I personally like to have some decent Democrats in office--they keep the offensive right wing nuts in check. Joe brought in a lot of votes for Gore in 2000--they would have lost by many more votes if he hadn't been on the ticket. Of course, those were the days when the Dems also believed, and preached, the danger of terrorists and WMD. They weren't rushing to support McKinney in Georgia, who is articulate, black and just as kooky as they are.

If a super-rich white guy with no political experience were running on the Republican ticket, the press would be all over him like flies on sweet corn cobs at a summer picnic. But WaPo described him as "little known entrepreneur." Yeah, a one issue candidate with the isolationist stance right out of the 1930s.

We can only hope that all the smart, patriotic Democrats and Independents were on vacation for the August primaries and they know how to vote at the polls when it really counts.

Joe Lieberman

2738 Back to Columbus

Usually I don't do the driving, but today I'll return to Columbus to pick up our cat who has, of course, been pining away for me while we were in Michigan.

We had a terrific time, staying with our friends who have a summer home in Boyne City, MI, and then drove us around to the various sites. Such a beautiful area. We were very impressed with Bay View, which looks much more like an architectural museum than Lakeside does. Beautifully preserved and restored homes from the 1870s-1915 era with a central campus.

With Jerry and Joan at the Bay View Inn where we had lunch.

Example of a restored home in Bay View. I couldn't possibly post all the photos my husband took, but this one is in the book, Cottages, which includes one of my husband's designs.

This is the street along the marina in Boyne City--a really lovely town with great appeal for both summer and winter (skiing).

We had a gorgeous trip to Charlevoix in our hosts' boat.

Lake Charlevoix
Boyne City, Michigan
Bay View, Michigan

2737 Off to Bay View, Michigan

Today we're off to Bay View, MI, to visit another Chautauqua community. I'm having a terrible time with my wireless connections--may not be doing much.